May 2010

May brings the first days of summer in Alabama.



We spent some time with friends...

Don't you love these two divas?

Went on picnics...

And train rides...

Sterling continued to do well on the keto diet. Below is a picture of him holding a typical keto meal. Yes, I said meal, not a snack. Part of the diet is a reduction in calories. Sterling will consume only 75% of the calories typical for a child his age and size. For dinner he'll eat, 9 grams cheese, 12 grams of chicken breast, 25 grams broccoli, topped with 4 grams of butter, and then drink 69 grams of heavy cream.

We also went strawberry picking with Grand-mere...



And swimming...

Or, lounging with Daddy...

And cheered Daddy on in a tennis match.

Then we hit another brick wall.

By the end of May Sterling ended up back in the hospital. I'm still not sure how to describe what happened exactly. He started exhibiting signs that something was wrong. He was lethargic, cranky, just not "well". By the evening he was dry heaving. The rigidity of the diet can lead to things like low blood sugars or acidosis, so my initial thought was perhaps his blood sugars were off and he needed to eat something. That didn't work. The next morning he was worse. I took him to the pediatrician who diagnosed a stomach bug and told us just to watch it. I took him home and he continued to vomit. We returned to the pediatrician's office 3 hours later and he had lost 3 lbs. So, it was off the the hospital we went. The biggest problem facing us was probably the medical access we had. We were home in Alabama, not in Atlanta near his neurologist and dietitian. I had to spend a lot of time explaining to doctors why they couldn't give my son glucose, and no, I really wasn't some crazy "natural remedies" mother who came up with the idea for this diet all on my own. We spent 5 days in the hospital. After we were able to stop the vomiting, he still wouldn't eat, so we had no way to get his much needed seizure meds into him. When finally he was able to take his meds on his own, we ripped the IV out and ran out of there as fast as we could! Nightmare.


It took Sterling a little while to bounce back from that hospital stay. Some of the progress we had been making in his therapies went backwards for a little while. It seems like being sick takes a much harder toll on him now.





He's coming back to us again. Slowly but surely. Now we just pray for no more set backs.